"We are a music startup, focused on educating users about music," says Kiran Bellubbi, a tech veteran who co-founded the developer with musician TJ Zark. "iPad has caused this mash-up of the two streams: the recorded music business and the book publishing side of the business."

The History of Jazz was released in January 2011. Why jazz? Bellubbi explains that the esoteric nature of the music genre was the main appeal.

"It's very difficult to read books about jazz. You've got these words – syncopation, modality ... these words don't mean anything to anybody really! It's elitist. What our app did was take away all that, to focus on the artist and the music. You can hear the music, read a little bit about it and connect to the artist. And of course, you can buy the music too."

That's something that's notable about both apps: they have curated playlists of music from the featured artists with playable samples, and the invitation to tap through to Apple's iTunes Store to buy them. Bellubbi believes that the more people read about an artist and their life, the more music they will buy.

"We sell more jazz music through our app than a traditional jazz records shop," he says. "It's the same with Woodstock. The experience has been bastardised to its core with tie-die and hippies, and diluted for today's generation. But by keeping the artist at the forefront, if I show you Janis Joplin's work in the 60s and allow you to connect with it in a manner that does justice to the artist, I would bet $100 that you would buy one of those albums."

955 Dreams is keen to use the platform behind its two apps so far for some specific artist apps in the future, through partnerships with record labels. The company is also working on a music discovery app of its own focused on new artists, which will hopefully make its debut in July.

"It's a subscription service around music, but very different from what people are used to. It's not like Spotify or Grooveshark or Amazon."

This may require licensing deals with music rightsholders – an area that has proved a challenge for many developers thus far. Bellubbi admits that "the cost of doing business with music labels is very high", right down to the legal fees required when hammering out licensing deals, but says 955 Dreams' first two apps has helped.

"When you meet the people who are managing these artists, they are very reasonable," he says. "They understand that we're trying to do something additive to the experience they've created. We're trying to get their work to consumers. We have a focus on the user, and a focus on the artist."